It’s been an occasionally bumpy ride for Western Australia’s two AFL teams this season, but come last Sunday night, both Fremantle and West Coast had more reason to smile than at any other stage in 2014.

At Patersons Stadium in the final game of the weekend, the Dockers not only scored their first win over Hawthorn in seven attempts, but made a considerable statement in doing so. As for the Eagles, well they’d sort of won even though they’d lost.

At arbout 7.20pm on Saturday evening when it was pipped on the post by Essendon, West Coast’s finals chances appeared over. About three hours later, after rivals for a spot in the top eight Adelaide and Collingwood had both fallen, the Eagles were very much alive.

The run to the finals.

While the past few weeks have underlined how little can go to the anticipated script, West Coast, currently 12th, will leapfrog the other contenders should it beat Melbourne (at home) and Gold Coast by a decent amount, along with Adelaide losing to North Melbourne this week, and Richmond and Collingwood falling to Sydney and Hawthorn respectively in the final round.

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Fremantle, meanwhile, has far fewer “ifs” and “buts” to worry about. While the Dockers appear unlikely to host a final in week one of September, that didn’t prove an issue even on the fortress that is Simonds Stadium last year. More importantly, Freo is starting to find the scoreboard.

As coach Ross Lyon noted last week, the way to beat Hawthorn isn’t so much through stifling defence, but attack. "The ones who are getting it right are Hawthorn. I think they are averaging 17 goals week," Lyon observed on Fox Footy at the weekend. "The rest of the top four are averaging 13-point-something, which we sit in."

But the Dockers found their own 17-goal mark against the Hawks. And a bit more.

Fremantle’s victory was only the Hawks’ fifth loss of the season. But in every defeat, their conqueror has passed the 100-point milestone. Indeed, those games are the only occasions all season Hawthorn has conceded 100 points.

With its own forward firepower and spread of goalkickers, if Hawthorn keeps its opponent below three figures, it wins. If it can’t, the equation appears to change significantly.

The Dockers, for their part, haven’t found the extra two goals per game Lyon during pre-season repeatedly said he was looking for. In fact, Freo is actually scoring at only 90 points per game compared to 92.5 last season. But the downturn in scoring in 2014 has proved a handy ally.

Last year, four teams averaged more than 100 points per game. In 2014, only Hawthorn does. The decline is such that second-ranked Port Adelaide (97.2) would in 2013 have placed only eighth. In Fremantle’s case, its 2013 average ranked only 12th. Now, with fewer points to their name, the Dockers are sixth.

That’s more like the profile required from a prospective premier, remembering that only one of the past 12 flag-winning teams (Sydney in 2005) has ranked any lower than fifth in either attack or defence.

The lower numbers across the competition have helped Fremantle remain afloat in the scoring stakes despite the prolonged absence of last year’s leading goalkicker Michael Walters, a key forward recruit in Scott Gumbleton who hasn’t played, and an out-of-sorts Chris Mayne, who’s averaging only a third of the goals he managed in 2013.

And it makes Sunday’s 17-goal tally, Fremantle’s fourth-highest score of the season, achieved without Hayden Ballantyne, all the more significant.

Walters’ return to the Dockers’ forward mix can’t be underestimated. While he finished Sunday with just one goal, he also boasted a team-high four score assists and was involved in seven scoring chains.

Skipper Matthew Pavlich emphasised again his importance to the Dockers’ firepower, his five-goal tally a season high. But his game also underlined just how little tweaking Freo’s most obvious weak spot needs to make a big difference to the bottom line.

The Dockers are already among the AFL’s most efficient teams inside the forward 50, ranking third for goals per entry with 26.3 per cent, and while they’re only seventh for numbers of inside 50 entries, on the more significant differentials they’re third, averaging 6.8 more entries per game than their opponents.

Add another game or few like that from Pav, a fit Walters and the name Ballantyne and Fremantle’s top four rivals might be finding themselves dealing with a far more difficult proposition this September.